My Name Is Earl: ''The Birthday Party'' Review

A hit-or-miss episode with some funny flashbacks as Earl celebrates his birthday.

We learned this week that it's been about a year since the events of My Name is Earl began, as Earl celebrated his birthday, and more importantly, his first year of living his new, "good" life. Earl was very happy to have his friends and family gathered at the Crab Shack; perhaps a too happy, as he was feeling somewhat overly self-satisfied about the good things he'd done. What followed was one anecdote after another taking Earl down a peg, as he was reminded by pretty much everyone he knew that there was still plenty more he had to atone for towards them.

This was a hit or miss episode of the series, hurt a bit by some of the jokes and moments being a bit too forced, such as Earl not recalling the correct name for Jackass, even while remembering that it was a show about a bunch of guys who acted like jackasses. And while it was nice to finally see how Earl met Dee Dee, the one legged woman whose car he'd stolen, some of that sequence was also more hammy than funny, such as Earl's reaction to Dee Dee asking him to "lend her a hand." And a continuity gripe: Dee Dee is wearing a pair of shorts in the scene in which she wakes up with Earl, but moments later we see the familiar flashback to her shooting at him as he steals her car, and she is wearing a skirt. Allowing for the fact that these moments were filmed a year and a half apart, it's hard not to notice something like that when the two moments are edited together to form one scene.

However, there were some very funny bits throughout the episode too. Some of the best jokes this week involved a bit of bait and switch, as the setup for a joke had us preparing for something very different than what we ended up seeing. First was Earl's mom recalling the time he peed on the rug, which led into a flashback where she was with an adorable naked infant, trying to get him to put a diaper on, only for the very adult Earl to stumble in drunk and begin peeing. The other great use of this type of joke involved Darnell complaining about the time Earl got him stoned; While this did indeed lead into a flashback involving pot brownies Darnell used to sell, the payoff, with Darnell actually getting stones thrown at him by an angry group of customers, was very well done.

Jason Lee as Earl, Jaime Pressly as Joy, Eddie Steeples as Darnell

Also amusing was the flashback to Joy's pregnancy, and her upset feelings that a neighborhood peeping tom didn't seem to care about watching her too. The montage of Earl making increasingly mean fat jokes to Joy, followed by a grinning, "Come on!" to her clearly angered reaction, was very funny.

It was good to have Beau Bridges back as Earl's dad, but his flashback was one of the weaker ones. The idea of Earl leaving pills in his dad's drink that made him so messed up he'd try to initiate a key party with his friends was good, but the execution fell a bit flat, as we saw his dad stumble around and make a fool himself, in a scene that just felt a bit off and awkward.

However, the final revelation that his friends had been purposely messing with him and actually were giving him the birthday present of crossing off the things they'd been bringing up was a sweet moment. And it's hard not to at least partially like an episode that ends with Earl break dancing again, this time to "Funky Cold Medina."